Marc Chernoff's Blog, page 62

10 Choices You Will Regret in 10 Years

“If only…”  These two words paired together create one of the saddest phrases in the English language.

Here are ten choices that ultimately lead to that phrase of regret, and how to elude them on the average day: (more…)

7 Brutal Lessons that Ultimately Make Life Beautiful

The reason for our suffering, in all walks of life, is our resistance to the truth.

Sometimes it’s brutally hard to accept life’s greatest lessons. And yet we must!

Because it’s lessons like these that ultimately make our lives beautiful, by showing us how to thrive even through the toughest of times…

1. Happiness doesn’t start with a relationship, a vacation, a job, or money. It starts with your thinking and what you tell yourself every day.

Typically, when I ask someone “How are you?” they reply, “I’m OK.” But this morning the attendant at the gas station replied, “Oh, I am absolutely marvelous!” Her enthusiastic response made me smile, so I asked her what was making her feel so marvelous. She continued, “I’m healthy, my son and daughter are both healthy, and we all have access to clean water and food and shelter and so much more. So I don’t have any good reason not to be positive.” The difference was simply her attitude and her choice of words. She wasn’t necessarily better off than anyone else I spoke to this morning, but she sure seemed a lot happier.

For many of us, I suspect that sometime between the innocent delight that we start out with in life and the grim acceptance of grown-up responsibility, we slip into (more…)

10 Harsh Realities that Help You Grow

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.
— Helen Keller

Character and wisdom are sculpted over time. They come with loss, lessons, and triumphs. They come after doubts, second guesses, and exploring unknowns. If there were a definitive path to happiness and success, everyone would be on it. The seeds of your progress are planted in your past failures. Your best stories will come from overcoming your greatest struggles. Your praises will be birthed from your pains. So keep standing, keep learning, and keep living.

Over the past fifteen years Angel and I have dealt with several severe hardships, including the sudden death of a sibling, the loss of a best friend to illness, betrayal from a business partner, and an unexpected breadwinning employment layoff. These experiences were brutal. Each of them, unsurprisingly, knocked us down and kept us down for a while. But when our time of mourning was over after each tragedy, we pressed forward, stronger, and with a greater understanding and respect for life.

So my challenge to you today is this: Start looking at life’s harsh realities and toughest challenges as friends that are going to help you grow.

Here are some thoughts to consider…

1. The first step is never easy.

The beginnings to good things are always the hardest, but it’s these hard times that pave the path to greatness. Be strong and keep the faith. It will be worth it in the end. The greatest miracle of your success in life will not be that you finished, it will be that you found the strength and courage to begin.

And remember, it’s not that those who are strong never get weak in the knees, or that they never hold their breath before they embark, it’s that while their knees are shaking they (more…)

10 Quotes for Letting Go of “How Life Should Be”

When life has to be a certain way in order to be good enough for us, we close ourselves off from so many of the real and present opportunities available.

On the contrary, when we let go of the way it “should be,” we free our minds to deal with life’s unexpected changes, challenges and chaos in the most effective way possible…

We create space for acceptance, learning and growth.

We learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others.

We see the world through an unbiased set of eyes.

And gradually, we allow ourselves to step forward with more peace of mind.

With that said, I don’t always let go when I need to. I don’t always have a clear and focused mind. Because I’m only human, and human beings have the tendency to hold on too tight. Sometimes life slaps us really hard and we attach ourselves to the pain, even when we know better.

When I’m holding on too tight, I can really feel it in my gut. I feel anxious, frustrated, irritated, and upset. There’s an aching for things to be different than they are — a feeling of rejection or betrayal or hopelessness.

I’m sure you can relate. We’re all struggling through this one together, in our own unique way right now. And the vast majority of our torment is the result of being caught up in whatever story we’re telling ourselves about how life “should” be.

So for starters, here’s what I try to keep in mind… (more…)

7 Things You Gain When You Let Go of Control

When you try to control too much, you enjoy too little. Sometimes you just need to let go, relax, take a deep breath and love what is.

This morning I met up with an old friend, someone whom I care about deeply but have internally struggled with for years because I’ve always been worried about her health.

I want to help her heal, because I feel I’m losing her.

I want to teach her the time-tested tools for living a happier, simpler, healthier life that I’ve helped so many other people with — so she can give up her addictions, take up exercise and mindfulness, nurture her needs, and suddenly be transformed into a healthy person again.

But that’s not reality. I want to control something that frightens me, but I can’t do anything about it. Because I’m not in control of anyone but myself. I want to help my friend, but she’s not interested in being helped. She has actually told me so a dozen times in the past.

So today, I let go.

Not “let go” as in “let her go.” I “let go” as in I stopped (more…)

7 Reasons to Stop Proving Yourself to Everyone Else

You are GOOD enough, SMART enough, FINE enough, and STRONG enough. You don’t need other people to validate you; you are already VALUABLE.

Sometimes we try to show the world we are flawless in hopes that we will be liked and accepted by everyone, but we can’t please everyone and we shouldn’t try. The beauty of us lies in our vulnerability, our complex emotions, and our authentic imperfections. When we embrace who we are and decide to be authentic, instead of who we think others want us to be, we open ourselves up to real relationships, real happiness, and real success.

There is no need to put on an act. There is no need to pretend to be someone you’re not. You have nothing to prove to anyone else, because…

1. The people worth impressing just want you to be yourself.

In the long run, it’s better to be loathed for who you are than loved for who you are not. In fact, the only relationships that work well in the long run are the ones that make you a better person without changing you into someone other than yourself, and without preventing you from outgrowing the person you used to be.

Ignore the comparisons and expectations knocking at your door. The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday. Prove yourself to yourself, not others. The RIGHT people for you will love you for doing so, and they will appreciate all the things about you that the WRONG people are intimidated by. Bottom line: Don’t change so people will like you; be patient, keep being your amazing self, and pretty soon the RIGHT people will love the REAL you.

2. No one else really knows what’s best for YOU.

Don’t lose yourself in your search for acceptance by others. Walk your path confidently and don’t expect anyone else to understand your journey, especially if they have not been exactly where you are going. You have to take the steps (more…)

Try Again: How to Restore the Faith You Once Had in Yourself

When I was a high school freshman, a 260-pound freshman girl showed up for track and field tryouts right alongside me.  Her name was Sara, and she was only there because her doctor said her health depended on it.  But once she scanned the crowd of students who were on the field, she turned around and began walking away.  Coach O’Leary saw her, jogged over, and turned her back around.

“I’m not thin enough for this sport!” Sara declared.  “And I’ll never be!  It’s impossible for me to lose enough weight.  I’ve tried.”

Coach O’Leary nodded, and promised Sara that her body type wasn’t suited for her current weight.  “It’s suited for 220 pounds,” he said.

Sara looked confused.  “Most people tell me I need to lose 130 pounds,” she replied.  “But you think I only need to lose 40?”

Coach O’Leary (more…)

31 Five-Second Reminders that Will Make Calmness Your Superpower

Your goal is to grow so strong on the inside that nothing on the outside can affect your inner peace of mind without your conscious permission.

The ultimate measure of your wisdom and strength? How calm you are when facing any given situation. Yes, calmness is a human superpower. The ability to not overreact or take things personally keeps your thoughts clean and your heart at peace, which instantly gives you an upper hand regardless of your circumstances.

Thus, the biggest and most complex obstacle you will ever have to overcome is your own mind. If you can overcome that, you can overcome almost anything. And by “overcoming,” I’m referring to the skill of mindfulness, and learning to effectively control your emotional responses to life’s unexpected tests. Because most of your deepest pain and frustration on a daily basis will come from the way you respond, not the way life is.

Of course, being calm and mindful is easier said than done, (more…)

9 Hard Things You Have to Do to Move Forward with Your Life

Maybe it’s the life lessons I was forced to learn the hard way, or the toll of loss and failure I had recently endured, but fifteen years ago, in the midst of a panic attack on my 27th birthday, I had to admit to myself right then and there that the youthful world of possibility I once felt now seemed dead inside me. I wanted to feel light and free and ambitious and passionate again, but I didn’t know how. Luckily, I had a wise mother nearby who gave me some good advice. She told me that she could still see a positive, passionate young man inside of me, but that I needed to do some soul searching to reconnect myself to him.

As I attempted to follow my mother’s advice, I remembered that I used to have two quotes written on post-it notes hanging on my bedroom wall when I was a kid: (more…)

5 Painfully Obvious Truths We Tend to Forget in Hard Times

The truth does not cease to exist when it is forgotten.

You know how you can read or hear something dozens of times in dozens of different ways before it finally sinks in? The little truths listed below fall firmly into that category — timeless life lessons that many of us likely learned years ago, and have been reminded of ever since, yet for whatever reason we tend to forget in the heat of the moment.

This, my friends, is my attempt at helping all of us, myself included, “get it” and “remember it” once and for all, especially as we collectively cope with the evolving struggles in the world today…

Reminder: Our 6th annual Think Better, Live Better conference just took place this past weekend in Orlando. If you didn’t attend in person, get yourself a full recording of the 2022 live event HERE.

1. Life is short, and nothing is guaranteed.

We know deep down that life is short, and that death will happen to all of us eventually, and yet we are infinitely surprised when it happens to someone we know. It’s like walking up a flight of stairs with a distracted mind, and misjudging the final step. You expected there to (more…)